Two convicts stage helicopter jailbreak in Quebec

MONTREAL – Two prisoners staged a daring escape from jail in eastern Canada using a hijacked helicopter, but one of the convicts was swiftly re-arrested while the other appeared to have been cornered by police, authorities said Sunday.

Sunday’s incident marked the first time that a helicopter has been used in a jailbreak in the French-speaking Canadian province of Quebec.

Police said two accomplices working from outside the Saint-Jerome prison near Montreal had hijacked a helicopter, forced its pilot to hover over the jail and, using a rope ladder, picked up Benjamin Hudon-Barbeau and Danny Provencal from a prison rooftop.

The helicopter and its pilot were found some time later in Mont-Tremblant, according to the police. The pilot was unharmed but taken to hospital suffering from shock.

Quebec Provincial Police said they swiftly detained Hudon-Barbeau, 36, who appeared to have been injured, along with his two outside accomplices.

In a Twitter message, the police said that they had also located Provencal, 33, and set up a security perimeter around him.

Radio Canada said Hudon-Barbeau has ties to the Hell’s Angels motorcycle club, which is considered an organized crime syndicate.

There was no word about Provencal’s background.

Media reports suggested that the inmates had held a gun to the pilot’s head.